The dramatic high point of Christopher Nolan’s version of The Odyssey comes when, after 20 years, Odysseus speaks to his wife Penelope while disguised as a traveler. He does not reveal himself—not openly, anyway—but, after three hours of movie-watching, he finally opens up about what has kept him from coming home all these years.

I was so struck by this scene that I bought the screenplay when I got home, because I think what Nolan does here is really significant.

PENELOPE How did you make it home, when Odysseus could not?

ODYSSEUS I’m not home. Not yet.

PENELOPE Why not?

ODYSSEUS It’s not always an easy thing, a homecoming. That’s as true for Odysseus as for me.

PENELOPE The Odysseus I knew would’ve found or fought his way back to me no matter what.

ODYSSEUS What if the Odysseus you knew lost his way? What if, one night in a strange city, he saw things that made him think the home he knew couldn’t possibly be there anymore?

Matt Damon’s Odysseus goes on to tell the story of what happened after he led a group of Greek soldiers out of the belly of the Trojan Horse and opened the gates for Agamemnon’s army. He describes it as witnessing “ten years of rage” pouring into the city in one night.

ODYSSEUS We left them a gift. An offering of peace that they took into their home. [Emphasis in original] We violated all that’s ever sacred between people.

“To burn the walls of Troy,” Odysseus concludes, “was to burn the world entire… Including his home.”

It goes without saying that The Odyssey is about home and homecoming. Homer locates home not only in the place of Ithaca, but also in the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope (not unlike Rabbi Yehudah in the first Mishnah of Tractate Yoma: beito zo ishto, ‘his home refers to his wife’). But Nolan brings a contemporary psychological take in his telling: At-homeness is also a state of being. While Odysseus may be physically back in his place and even reunited with his family, he is struggling mightily to be at home with himself—all as a result of his treacherous violation of the ethic of hospitality: “We left them a gift, an offering of peace they took into their home.” Middah k’neged middah, as we might say (or, colloquially, karma): By violating the ethics of home, Odysseus loses his own ability to be at home.

Home is meant to be a peaceful place. That’s why shalom bayit, peace in the home, is such a virtue—because a violent home is anathema. While the word bayit actually doesn’t occur much in the traditional liturgy, the place where its sensibility is most profound is probably in the prayer for peace with which we conclude the Amidah. Notice the things we mention here: “peace, goodness, blessing, favor, kindness and compassion.” We remind ourselves that Torah is about “life and the love of kindliness, righteousness, blessing, compassion, life and peace.” And we conclude the prayer with that same word, shalom—peace, peacefulness, being at home with ourselves, the Holy One, and one another.

The opposite of both peace and home is war, the subject with which Parashat Ki Tetzei opens: “When you go out to war against your enemies” (Deut. 21:10). This continues a section that started in the previous chapter in which we find going to war positioned as the polar opposite of being at home. The officials are instructed to speak to the troops before they enter battle and ask a series of questions: “Is there anyone who has built a new house but has not dedicated it? Is there anyone who has planted a vineyard but has never harvested it? Is there anyone who has betrothed a wife, but who has not yet taken her into his household?” And finally, as a summation, “Is there anyone fearful or fainthearted?” If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then the order is, “Let him go back to his home.” You can be on the battlefield, or you can be at home—but you can’t be both.

The Seer of Lublin quotes the Talmud (Sotah 44a): “Is there anyone fearful or fainthearted—this refers to one who is afraid because of the sins they have committed.” From here, the Seer concludes, we can understand that “anyone who went out to war was certain of himself that he had no sin.” After all, self-confidence would seem to be a virtue in an army. And yet, the Seer concludes, such self-confidence carries a significant shadow side: “One who lacks any sensation of sin is liable to stumble at the first opportunity.”

I have not been a soldier—nor, as far as I’m aware, was the Seer of Lublin. So I cannot claim any insight into the experience of ancient soldiers like Odysseus or my own namesake, Joshua, and I will not offer commentary on the soldiers of today. What interests me in this discussion is what, if anything, it can tell us about the condition of being at home—in the literal sense and in a more psychological and spiritual sense as well.

In my view, one important idea is that home is not an idealized, fixed place. In a world of constant change and instability, we might want home to be someplace that never changes. But home does change, as do we. A yearning for an unchanging home is nostalgia—which has its place but is its own form of dodging reality.

Instead, I would offer that at-homeness is a state of mind and spirit in which we can look at ourselves—in the singular and the plural—critically but non-judgmentally. To be at home is to be at peace, which on the most basic level means to feel safe from violence. When we can inhabit such a place physically, mentally, and spiritually, then we actually can engage in discernment, judgment, and healthy conflict. That is a healthy kind of faith, the kind Rabbi Jonathan Sacks described as “like being secure in one’s home, yet moved by the beauty of foreign places, knowing that they are someone else’s home, not mine, but still part of the glory of the world that is ours.”

Sacks wrote those words in the wake of 9/11. A quarter-century later, his conclusion rings true, even if the work seems just as daunting: “Those who are confident in their faith,” what I would call at home with themselves, “are not threatened but enlarged by the different faith of others. In the midst of our multiple insecurities, we need that confidence now.”

When folks ask me these days, “How’s your mom?” my answer is still, “She’s the world’s best Alzheimer’s patient.” But her world definitely feels like it’s shrinking. We’re approaching a decade since she was diagnosed. While she has blessedly been spared the kind of major personality change many dementia patients can experience, our conversations don’t have much room to roam. We stay close to talking about the meal that will be served next on her floor, what I’m up to today, and, when I visit, listening to music together.

At this stage I often get the question, “Does she still recognize you?” That’s hard to answer. She definitely doesn’t recognize most people, though she is totally friendly to them and excited to welcome guests. She can still access key conversational scripts like, “Where did you grow up?” or “What do you do for a living?” And she answers most statements with something like, “Oh, that’s terrific!” or “Isn’t that great?!” (You can take Happy largely out of the world, but you can’t take the happy out of Happy.)

As for whether she recognizes me in particular, I’ve concluded that we’re in this kind of nether zone where it’s just kind of hazy. She knows that if she presses a button on her speed dial, she can find a person on the other end of the line whose name is Josh, and she can tell me that that person is her son. But it’s not always clear when I visit that, in her mind, the person visiting (me) is the same person as on the phone a few minutes before.

For me, by far the most important practice has been letting go of expectations. I just try to follow her lead and respond with what I sense she needs and not get caught on what logic might be operating in my brain. Once I’ve let go of the idea that she thinks of me as “my son Josh” in the same way you or I might utter that phrase, I find it’s much easier to focus and do the mitzvah I’m here to do. It’s not about me—it’s about her.

All of that has led me to reflect more on the nature of memory and consciousness. We know these days that, even in healthy folks, memory is a really tricky thing. In its own way, this part of my life seems like it’s commenting on some of the questions swirling around AI: What is hallucination, what’s true, and when does that matter?

Anyone who has tried to sit with mindful awareness of their thoughts for even a few minutes will likely agree that consciousness is quite a mystery. What is it to be lucid? What does a healthy memory or consciousness look like? It’s not so simple.

A story is told of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Rabinowicz of Peshischa (1766-1813), “Hayehudi Hakadosh,” the “Holy Jew,” when he went to visit his teacher, Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin. He found the rebbe distraught and asked why he was so low. “I have transgressed the negative commandment, ‘Be careful lest you forget YHVH your God’ (Deut. 8:11),” he answered. “For one brief moment I allowed my attention to slip and didn’t give my full consciousness to the existence of the Holy One.”

The Yehudi Hakadosh responded, “We find taught in the Mishnah (Peah 6:6) that if one forgot a sheaf of wheat in the field, it is normally considered to be lost—the owner can’t go back to get it but rather has to leave it in the field. But if it is so large as to be two seahs [about 24 liters], it is not considered forgotten. Why? Because something that is good is not forgotten—if one forgets it, they will immediately remember it. ‘Forgotten but in the end remembered’ is not considered forgotten. So too in your case: You have not transgressed the commandment, for you immediately remembered.”

The rebbe replied, “You have brought me back to life.”

Perhaps the most basic gesture of mindfulness meditation is this: Set an intention, e.g. to be mindfully aware of your breathing. Try to do that. And then, when you inevitably notice that your attention has wandered, gently bring your attention back to your intention. Rinse and repeat.

Years ago, my friend and colleague, Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell, changed my life when he pointed out (in our online Gift of Awareness introduction to Jewish mindfulness meditation course) that this process is the very same one we practice during the High Holidays: it’s teshuva. We set a kavana, an intention. We miss the mark (chet, sin, literally means missing the mark, as in archery). We become aware of that and remember our intention (zekhira—remembering). At that moment, we have the opportunity to return to our intention (teshuva means return).

Like I said, a life-changing teaching.

Making such a choice is often lubricated by an underlying posture of hesed, compassionate love, for ourselves—or for whoever we may seek to be in relationship with. That is what I hear in the Yehudi Hakadosh’s words to his rebbe: Your intention is to be present and aware at all times. Inevitably, you will miss the mark. Given that this is hardwired into our human system, I think we can understand the teaching to be that it is neither possible nor healthy to imagine that inevitable human forgetfulness is outside the scope of Divine compassion.

Maybe it’s not an accident that my own mindfulness practice has deepened so much precisely in these years of my mother’s dementia. On pretty much a daily basis, I find myself living in that basic teshuva pattern: intention, miss the mark, notice, return. For her and for me, I find that holding it all lightly is essential. I try to notice and let go of impulses to judge either of us harshly or reactively. In doing so, hopefully I help make room for both of us to remember the love and compassion that’s never forgotten.

For Reflection & Conversation

• What does this reflection evoke for you? Are there relationships or aspects of yourself to which you’d like to bring more compassion? What, if anything, gets in the way of doing so? Who or what might help you to soften or dissolve those barriers?